Chapter 7: KiKuro - Punctuated! For! Emphasis! - Part 1

Short, shameless fluff featuring Kise and Fem!Kuroko.

Kise Ryouta was, for lack of a better word, forever alone.

Earlier that night, just hours before the world would usher in the New Year, he had been dumped by his girlfriend of 11 weeks.

Kise was a member of the Japanese National Basketball Team, a team whose core members were so prodigious they were termed the Generation of Miracles by the populace. Kise had always been dubbed the 'cute one' of said Generation of Miracles, something he truly detested. While his teammates had intimidating epithets along the lines of Akashi the Tyrant, Aomine the Monster, Musakibara the Titan, and Midorima the Shooting God, he was Kise the Cutie-pie Copycat…

Kise took another swig of his beer as he sat outside the deserted entrance of the Tokyo Metropolitan Library, looking up at the night sky. It would soon be filled with fireworks and rockets of various colours, shape, and sizes, signaling 2014's arrival. Unfortunately for Kise, it would also serve as the reminder that he, for the fifth year in a row, would not have anyone to share the New Year's kiss with.

Kise sighed.

It wasn't as if he was a bad boyfriend, he was a nice guy. 'Too nice', as many of his teammates always pointed out. He was also attractive, so much so that many of his opponents had thought it unfair that he had been blessed with both good looks and athletic ability.

For him, getting a girlfriend was effortless. The female population flocked to him like bees to honey, usually all too desperate to catch his attention. Yet, he had never been lucky in love. Why was it so hard for him to maintain a relationship?

Deep down, Kise knew the answer. As much as he hated to pin the blame on his teammates, it was too damn difficult to ignore the effect his friends had on his ex-girlfriends. It had happened so many times in the past. At this point, it was worse than a certainty, it was an inevitability; as soon as he introduced a girl to his friends, she would start comparing him to the rest of the Generation of Miracles.

Kise was fast, but not as fast as Aomine.

Kise was charismatic, but not as charismatic as Akashi.

Kise was tall, but not as tall as Musakibara.

Kise was a good shooter, but not as good of a shooter as Midorima.

Kise was knowledgeable, but he couldn't recite pi to 1000 decimal places off the top of his head like Midorima could.

Kise was a decent enough cook, but he couldn't present his girlfriend with a homemade 5-tiered birthday cake like Musakibara could.

Kise was romantic, but he couldn't bring his girlfriend out for dinner on a private luxury yacht like Akashi could.

Kise was red-blooded, but he couldn't make their love-making sessions as exciting as the potently virile Aomine could.

Granted, the last comparison did require some extrapolation. But, according to the testimonials of Aomine's numerous flings, his epithet proved appropriate for more than just his on court persona.

Kise blanched.

The last thing he wanted to think about during the last minutes of 2013 was how women had turned the word 'monster' into a euphemism for his teammate's penis.

Kise knew that he was a perfectly good catch, but put him beside his teammates and his girlfriends would almost instantaneously lose sight of him. Yet, he couldn't just eschew introducing his girlfriends to his teammates. They were friends that he'd been on the same team with since middle school after all.

"I wonder if I'll ever meet someone who will look at me and only me," Kise spoke out loud, glad that no one was around to witness his sad and lonely self.

He finished his beer and tried to shoot the empty can into the bin some metres away.

It missed.

Kise sighed again and began to stand up when a voice from nowhere spoke, "Please refrain from littering."

"Ahh!" The disembodied dialogue had surprised him so much that he had lost his footing, slipped, and landed soundly on his bum.

"Where the hell did you come from?!" Kise asked as he looked at the ghostly presence behind him.

Kise was pretty sure that the girl was human, just one with an extremely weak presence. She was taller than your average Japanese girl, paler than your average Japanese citizen, and had long hair a peculiar shade of turquoise – something no one, Japanese or not, should have. Yet, the girl managed to pull it off beautifully.

"I've been here since before you sat down. I was locking up the library."

"You're a librarian?" Kise couldn't believe it. He hadn't noticed her at all. Was he that drunk?

"Yes, and you're loitering as well as littering on the library grounds," she said coolly.

Kise blushed an obvious dark red and immediately reached for the can on the ground before depositing it in the bin.

"Sorry…" Kise massage the back of his neck awkwardly, unsure of what to do or say. "So, err… You probably heard huh?"

"'I wonder if I'll ever meet someone who will look at me and only me'?" She repeated. "Yes, I heard."

'Damn it! She caught me at such an uncool moment!' Kise wished he would just sink into the ground.

"You'll meet someone someday."

Again, Kise was completely caught off guard by the girl before him. She spoke with a clear and lucid purity. There was no hint of derisive sarcasm whatsoever. Kise looked at her. She was looking at him with the bluest of eyes, so strong and focused, focused entirely on him. She was nothing like the girls who had always surrounded him, those whose eyes would purposely dart all over the place in an attempt to be coy.

Somehow, Kise knew instinctively that the girl in front of him was a person who was completely devoid of pretence.

Kise's heart started pounding out of control. It was crazy, she was a perfect stranger.

But then she smiled a barely-there smile. It was the absolute smallest, yet most genuine smile he had ever received from anyone.

At that point, Kise's heart stopped pounding, twirled around, did a triple somersault, and fell with a sound splat. The universe seemed to approve, because at that exact moment, the New Year fireworks shot up into the atmosphere with a bang, lighting the whole sky with wonderfully vivid colours.

Kise credited the alcohol flowing through his bloodstream for making him exponentially bolder that night. He walked toward the girl, lent down, and kissed her squarely on the lips.

Only when he felt a sharp stinging pain on his left cheek did he realize that he hadn't even ask the girl, who was currently running away from him at breakneck speed, her name.